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Without making this specifically about me, is it possible to continue, sustainably in a M with a WS without R?

Say WS is an otherwise good match for you aside from the fact that they had an A. Like the same food and entertainment as you. Wants to raise kids the same way as you. Is trustworthy as it comes to things like finances and time management. Sex is good in both frequency and quality. The WS has apparently stopped the A, and has slowly come to understand the damage that they caused.

However, said WS continues to make suboptimal decisions. Breaking NC, rarely, to have otherwise completely innocuous conversations they tell you about/don't hide. Lying about minor things, unrelated to the A. Something like the price they paid for something. Making friends with AP's close friend. Let's say you are willing to be flexible on basically everything except for an A continuing or a new one starting.

Is it possible to just suck it up and make it work functionally, even though you cannot fully reconcile due to the WS's actions? How long can you continue in limbo or sitting on the fence as a sort of practical matter? Can you just treat your SO as an exclusive fuckbuddy/roommate/co-parent that just doesn't really care as much about your feelings as their own? It's almost like "I'm in love with you but I don't love you" to reverse the old saying.

Sure it's possible.

But why would you want to do that?

I'm not asking that in a snarky tone, mind you, but genuinely curious. For me personally, that is not a situation I would want to live in indefinitely.

Breaking NC negates the idea that she gets how much damage she caused. I think you could maybe live in the situation without that. I would venture to guess that without that and true remorse the connection aspect could be revived over time.

I would suggest making it clear breaking NC means divorce papers. That is untenable and ridiculous.

sustainably in a M with a WS without R?

Probably for as long as you can tolerate it.

It’s a bit like asking how long you can stand someone scraping nails on a chalkboard. The answer is different for everyone. But ultimately most people are going to say “not for very long.” Very few would say “oh nails on chalkboard are fine.” Even fewer will say “i like the sound of nails on chalkboard.”

People talk about arranged marriages as if they are loveless. Yet if you’ve been exposed to cultures where such marriages are common, you know this isn’t true and that rates of faithfulness are as good if not better.

What you’re talking about is sort of a reverse engineered arranged marriage but without much in the way of prospects for any burgeoning love over time.

Seems like a dubious prospect.

I am in a strictly co-parenting marriage. There are a lot of differences from the circumstances you list in your post. We are not right for each other. We are not at all compatible. We have very little in common aside from our children (who are the only reason we are staying married). We do not have sex.

It wasn’t always this way. It has become this way over time.

No, I don’t feel it is sustainable in the long term. I can “suck it up” in almost any way for the time being for my kids, but I am working on an exit strategy for a few years’ time.

TOF

Making friends with AP's close friend. Let's say you are willing to be flexible on basically everything except for an A continuing or a new one starting.

You are asking a question that no one walking the planet can give you a definitive answer to since each person is totally different on just about everything.

But i think most will agree that if you are playing the odds, your WW has made a determination that not only will she refuse to cut the OM out of her and your life, but that she is apparently now increasing the orbit of his world and shoving it down your throat. Now if you actually believe that does not increase the odds of another affair, then you must not believe Shirley Glass's book, Not just Friends, because you are totally ignoring one of the "golden rules, and now she has escalated it to include his friends.

Can you live with it???/ Sure you can. Most of us i would guess would not want to.

However, said WS continues to make suboptimal decisions. Breaking NC, rarely, to have otherwise completely innocuous conversations they tell you about/don't hide. Lying about minor things, unrelated to the A. Something like the price they paid for something. Making friends with AP's close friend.

These don’t seem like hypothetical questions.

1. still breaking NC? I think you know what most would say and why.

2. Rubbing your face in the affair by being best buddies with associates of AP?

3. Lying about minor things? Probably means she is lying about big things or will.

These are “suboptimal”? Really? I can think of some less euphemistic language that doesn’t minimize these really awful actions. I’m sure you can too.

And why are you willing to be flexible? After all this?

[This message edited by Thumos at 4:52 PM, October 19th (Monday)]

To make the thread briefly about me, I don't see the benefit of divorce. It puts me in a worse place financially. It makes taking care of the kids more complicated. I still have to have WS in my life as a co-parent, so it's not like she's out of my life.

Why bother with divorcing her if everything else is good? The gains just don't seem worth the trouble and the costs related to D since she is otherwise stable and meeting all my needs (if not all my wants).

Possible? Yes. Realistic? Not at all. This type of relationship that you laid out can not be positive for your mental health.

Say WS is an otherwise good match for you aside from the fact that they had an A. Like the same food and entertainment as you. Wants to raise kids the same way as you. Is trustworthy as it comes to things like finances and time management.

This can be done through co-parenting. You can continue to have this type of relationship with her if divorced.

But if you want to continue your marriage, she has to stop doing the things she is doing. Right now you are on path to have your marriage end by "Death by 1,000 cuts". A little lie here and there, making friends with APs close friend (to me that is breaking NC). She needs to want to correct those hurtful actions and become a better wife. If she is not willing then you are only waiting for another affair to start and that is not the way it should be.

Why bother with divorcing her if everything else is good?

It seems like you are trying to talk yourself into something you know won’t work. I don’t think too many here want to help you do that.

It also seems like you are in a great deal of pain and trying to deal with the cognitive dissonance. To which I would say simply I’m sorry.

No one here wants this pain for you. We’d all like to see you on the other side of this pain.

[This message edited by Thumos at 9:41 PM, October 19th (Monday)]

It seems like you want to stay in this marriage. It is your life, so you do you. However, Im not sure how she is meeting all your needs. Trusting someone and being treated with respect IS, to me, a need. And if she is being disrespectful, which, sounds like she is - your needs are not being met. You are turning a need into a want.

If you want that marriage, fine. Be honest with yourself about what is happening. And alap asm yourself about the relationship yoh areodeling for your kids. They do know

Why bother with divorcing her if everything else is good?

Because by breaking NC, she is showing you she doesn't have ANY respect for you,or the marriage. She is showing you she does not love you.

By staying married,and living as a married couple, having sex,etc, in a situation like this, then you also have no respect for yourself.

Now, if you were to stay married, but agree to just be friends,and you both do your own thing, while coparenting, that's different. But thats not the situation.

You are investing in a woman who isn't invested in you. One who will have another affair,because she's done zero work on herself. And..why not? She knows you aren't going anywhere. The only consequence has been you were hurt for awhile. And she's already showing you she doesn't care about you,so she certainly won't care about hurting you again.

You can do this limbo indefinitely but it comes at an expense possibly to your mental health. Only you will know when you have had enough. I was in limbo for 5 years and hit my tipping point. Life is a lot better on the other side of infidelity whether it is R or S/D. You will also be showing your kids a loveless M just keep that in mind. I hope you are mostly detached so that if you were to discover another A it won't be as damaging to you.

Breaking NC and making friends with AP's close friends is a huge breach.

OP

What you describe is my life.

Thinking I knew the depth of the depravity WH committed, I forged ahead.

Sex sucked/ stopped

Turns out, WH was still lying.

I sacrificed my prime years for a Cheater.

By NOT divorcing, I gave up the option of starting anew with someone better.

I could have known real love, affection, great companionship, wonderful sex. My children could have grown up seeing what a healthy relationship looked like

By staying married to a Cheatwr, I took myself out of the possibility of something good.

Now I am stuck staying married (on paper) so I keep my health insurance after two strokes.

A legal union with a Cheater who never worked to deserve me.

Don’t hobble yourself. You can always make more money. You can’t get those shredded years of your life back

I think there are a lot of reasons people stay together besides love, and there is nothing wrong with that if it works for you. When I first chose to stay with my WH, it was more for the business reasons. I didn’t want to lose half the time with my son, didn’t want to lose my house, didn’t want to suffer more financially, etc. The reasons have changed over the last 6 months or so, but only because he seems to have not broken NC, hasn’t cheated, seems to be working on himself, etc. Had that not happened, I don’t know that I could have continued.

Honestly though, I could see myself living out my days in a relationship that was no more than a business arrangement. Not necessarily an open marriage, but one that wasn’t based undying love, but was based on what we gained from each other, or what we didn’t lose by leaving each other.

But if you want to continue your marriage, she has to stop doing the things she is doing. Right now you are on path to have your marriage end by "Death by 1,000 cuts". A little lie here and there, making friends with APs close friend (to me that is breaking NC). She needs to want to correct those hurtful actions and become a better wife. If she is not willing then you are only waiting for another affair to start and that is not the way it should be.

Yeah, but why put the cart in front of the horse?

I could D at any time of course. But why not wait until something significant gives me the impulse and desire to really do so?

Without making this specifically about me, is it possible to continue, sustainably in a M with a WS without R?

Say WS is an otherwise good match for you aside from the fact that they had an A. Like the same food and entertainment as you. Wants to raise kids the same way as you. Is trustworthy as it comes to things like finances and time management. Sex is good in both frequency and quality. The WS has apparently stopped the A, and has slowly come to understand the damage that they caused.

However, said WS continues to make suboptimal decisions. Breaking NC, rarely, to have otherwise completely innocuous conversations they tell you about/don't hide. Lying about minor things, unrelated to the A. Something like the price they paid for something. Making friends with AP's close friend. Let's say you are willing to be flexible on basically everything except for an A continuing or a new one starting.

Is it possible to just suck it up and make it work functionally, even though you cannot fully reconcile due to the WS's actions? How long can you continue in limbo or sitting on the fence as a sort of practical matter? Can you just treat your SO as an exclusive fuckbuddy/roommate/co-parent that just doesn't really care as much about your feelings as their own? It's almost like "I'm in love with you but I don't love you" to reverse the old saying.

I'd say that you can do it however long you want to. But after reading the above, I think you are just setting yourself for DDay after Dday, or a "Surprise" ILYBIDLY and a move in OM's.

There strikes me as much wrong with your plan @This0Is0Fine.

1. You and your wife are modeling relationships for your kids, whether you consciously recognize that or not.

2. You are basically letting someone else drive your marriage and your life while you are sitting passively in the back seat. You are likely to end up divorced at some point, thing is it will be your WW who will be the one making the decision--since you won't do it yourself. And it is indeed likely to happen at some point. What makes you think that your WW would want to stay forever in a hollowed-out marriage, especially since her willingness to fix the marriage that she herself hollowed out, is so limited.

And of course, related to the above is that every day you stay with WW is a day longer that you won't get to be truly moving on with your own life.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 5:49 PM, October 19th (Monday)]

1. Let's say for the sake of the argument we are modeling the ability to forgive in the face of difficult circumstances and persevere through the challenges.

2. I'm wu wei as fuck about it.

1. How could it possibly be about persevering though. Your marriage is broken and NEITHER of you are willing to put in hard work to make things better i.e., fix your marriage or get out of it. You are modeling RESIGNATION instead.

2. Not wu wei, passivity on your part.

Sorry, but you did ask. It is your life though.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 6:33 PM, October 19th (Monday)]